New Rabbi of Vienna: Hagaon Rabbi Aryeh Folger

"With the blessing and encouragement of Gedolei Torah, Rebbes, Roshei Yeshivos, Maranan Verabonan shlita I accept upon myself submissively the yoke of the Chief Rabbinate of Vienna. The city in which Gedolei Yisroel grew and walked about, geniuses of the world. I will do all it takes to increase and glorify the Torah. To establish more institutions for Torah education. To formulate their communities and try to return, even the coronal coattails of this city," said Rabbi Aryeh Folger with his election to serve as rabbi of Vienna. 21 members of the holy community members to the Council of the United Jewish Communities in Vienna elected him to serve as rabbi of the Austrian capital. Folger will replace Rabbi Chaim Eisenberg, who has retired and will continue to serve as rabbi of Austria.

Rabbi Folger will assume his post towards the upcoming Shvuos. Under the Constitution he will serve three months as rabbi of the Jewish community and then will take office as Rabbi of Vienna. President of the Conference of European Rabbis and the chairman of the Standing Committee, Hagaon Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt and the rabbinical manager of the conference , Rabbi Moshe Label, welcomed Rabbi Folger on his election and assured that the Conference of European Rabbis will be his right hand to uplift Torah, to strengthen and found religious institutions and education and nurture communities around Vienna.

Rabbi Folger was born in Antwerp, Belgium to a father who was a Holocaust survivor and a mother who was born in Marrakech, Morocco. His grandparents - Rabbi Asher Zelig Partick and his son in-law Rabbi Yehuda Leib Folger were the gabbaim of the Rabbi Meir Ba'al Hanes in Galicia and were among the Kolsitz and Babov chassidim. In his youth he studied at Yeshivas Etz Chaim in Antwerp, where he won a special closeness with Hagaon Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Treger zt"l. He then studied at Gateshead, England, by Hagaon Rabbi Avraham Gurvitz. For three years he studied Torah in Israel at the Mir Yeshiva. Then he emigrated to the United States and rose at Yeshiva Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin. Five years he studied at the Yeshiva Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan, where he received smicha, with the Rebbe Ya'akov Yishayahu Halberstam of Zimigrad giving him smicha as well.

For six years Rabbi Folger served as Rabbi of Basel and later as head of the publishing of the Rabbinical Council of America. Two years he served as rabbi of Munich and for a year he headed the kashrus system in Frankfurt and other rabbinic positions, and serves as the Chief Rabbi of Karlsruhe in Germany, where the Korban Nathanel served, while engaged in writing an halachic book for the OU organization, famous for its kashrus system, one of the world's largest.

In Austria there are currently four communities with the largest of them, numbering about seven thousand people, in Vienna. It is particularly evident in Europe that Orthodox communities in Vienna and community are affiliated with the community council and its elected rabbi. The city has Torah institutions and many education institutions, Talmudei Torah and schools. The elected Rabbi Aryeh Folger said that the first task he undertook was to establish more educational, Torah and chessed institutions and uplift and unite the Jewish communities.

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!